The British Carrier Strike Fleet after 1945

David Hobbs

• Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781848324121
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

"A comprehensive study of the bittersweet post WWII history of British naval aviation... will become a standard reference for its subject."— Firetrench In 1945 the most powerful fleet in the Royal Navy's history was centered on nine aircraft carriers. This book charts the post-war fortunes of this potent strike force; its decline in the face of diminishing resources, its final fall at the hands of uncomprehending politicians, and its recent resurrection in the form of the Queen Elizabeth class carriers, the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy. After 1945 "experts" prophesied that nuclear weapons would make conventional forces obsolete, but British carrier-borne aircraft were almost continuously employed in numerous conflicts as far apart as Korea, Egypt, the Persian Gulf, the South Atlantic, East Africa and the Far East, often giving successive British Governments options when no others were available. In the process the Royal Navy invented many of the techniques and devices crucial to modern carrier operations angled decks, steam catapults and deck-landing aids while also pioneering novel forms of warfare like helicopter-borne assault, and tactics for countering such modern plagues as insurgency and terrorism. This book combines narratives of these poorly understood operations with a clear analysis of the strategic and political background, benefiting from the author's personal experience of both carrier flying and the workings of Whitehall. It is an important but largely untold story, of renewed significance as Britain once again embraces carrier aviation. "Makes a timely and welcome appearance... will make compelling reading for those with serious concern for our naval affairs."— St. Andrews in Focus

1 Manpower, Fleets and Changes

The effective strike operations carried out by the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) in 1945 against Japanese strategic, industrial, military and naval targets drew the Royal Navy into a new era of warfare. It had been the only British strike force capable of attacking mainland Japan and had done so with an economy of manpower and equipment that should have demonstrated to post-war British governments how a maritime strategy could be deployed affordably in the nation’s best interests across the world when required in the uncertain years after 1945. The BPF had also harnessed the potential of the Commonwealth to act together in support of a common aim, besides fighting seamlessly alongside the armed forces of the United States. At the dawn of an era when the United Nations was expected to be the guardian of the world’s peace these were factors as important as the fleet’s effectiveness in combat. The BPF’s embarked aircraft had been the core of the fleet’s power and those who understood its achievements predicted a bright future for naval aviation in the post-war era. After the end of hostilities, the BPF had shown further flexibility by transforming a number of ships, especially aircraft carriers, to repatriate former prisoners of war and internees and to provide humanitarian relief to places such as Hong Kong left destitute by Japanese occupation forces. In the power vacuum after the collapse of Japan the BPF had moved seamlessly into a constabulary role to put down piracy and insurrection across the Far East so that peacetime trade could be restored. The fleet demonstrated its ability to deploy the right amount of force or humanitarian aid in the right place at the right time, often using the same resources for both tasks.

For much of late 1945 and 1946, BPF warships and their ships’ companies proved to be not only the most suitable entity for a wide variety of sensitive and difficult new tasks but, in many cases, they represented the only organisation available in the short term to implement UK government policies that had not been anticipated or prepared for. The former French and Dutch colonial empires in Indo-China and the East Indies had to be held against nationalist insurgents until suitable colonial forces could be shipped to them from Europe where the colonial powers were, themselves, trying to recover from German occupation. The restoration of French and Dutch rule in the region, whilst distasteful to some, was supported by the United Nations in the short term to restore stability and was accepted as British government policy. It was an important aspect of the restoration of global trade and, therefore, vital to the recovery of the United Kingdom’s economy after six years of war. The BPF contributed to the restoration of stability and British trade in a number of ways including the protection of shipping against piracy and the illegal use of force by non-state forces. More subtly it ‘showed the flag’ in many ports to emphasise that Britain was a victorious power with global reach, able to act for good as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

The BPF led the Royal Navy into a new era of warfare in which carrier air groups would be used with powerful effect against enemies at sea, in the air and on land, if necessary at considerable distances from the UK. A running range of Corsairs and Avengers is seen here on Victorious, about to take off to strike targets in Japan. RN carrier-borne aircraft like these were the only British aircraft to attack the Japanese mainland during the Second World War. (Author’s collection)

Many urgent operational tasks remained after VJ-Day, among them the clearance of wartime minefields. On the initiative of the Admiralty, an international organisation was created, based in London, to supervise the work of clearance¹ and 1900 minesweepers from many nations were employed on the task. Despite this effort, 130 merchant ships and fishing vessels of all nationalities were sunk or damaged in late 1945 and early 1946, most of them vessels that strayed outside specified channels despite published advice, but no minesweepers were lost. At the beginning of 1946 the Royal Navy operated 513 minesweepers across the world on active duty, all of which had to be manned by skilled personnel available for long enough to avoid constant disruptions to their ships’ companies. By the beginning of 1947 the number had reduced to sixty-five² and over 4600 mines had been swept by British and Commonwealth vessels during 1946³ in areas as far apart as the Atlantic, North Sea, Mediterranean, Singapore, Malaya, Hong Kong, Indo-China and Borneo.

Powerful strike carrier operations had continued in the BPF until the last hours of the war but the Home Fleet had already run down considerably before the Japanese surrender and the Mediterranean Fleet had effectively become a training force, providing operational sea training facilities in good weather for newly commissioned ships. The end of hostilities and the urgent need for the UK Government to recover an economy that was on the verge of bankruptcy after rearmament and six years of global war meant that the Admiralty had to carry out a programme of demobilisation and force reduction on a massive scale. In 1945 there was already a manpower crisis, with new ships including sixteen of the new light fleet carriers coming into service and older ships including the carriers Furious and Argus and several battleships having to be reduced to reserve to find the experienced men needed to man them. The Admiralty had expected the war in the Pacific to last into 1946 but, under pressure from the Government to make manpower available for the restoration of British industry, had already begun to release men in certain categories back into civilian life. The Japanese surrender in August 1945 meant that large numbers of men would have to be demobilised while maintaining operational capability where it was still needed urgently. The RN in general, and its Fleet Air Arm in particular faced a number of problems once the imperative to mount major combat operations at long range ceased and the Service had to revert to a peacetime size and structure.

Manpower and Training

In mid-1945 approximately 866,000 men and women were serving in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) but over 75 per cent of the officers were mobilised members of the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) and a large percentage of ratings enlisted since 1939 had joined under ‘hostilities only’ rules, although these had allowed for some of them to be retained until ‘normal’ conditions were restored and men on peacetime engagements trained to replace them. This number was far in excess of the Royal Navy’s approved war strength of 450,000 in 1918 and demobilisation had to be carried out, therefore, on a scale and at a pace that was unprecedented. Some organisations could be demobilised quickly as the requirements for them had ended with the enemy’s surrender. These included Western Approaches Command in Liverpool; the wartime Home Fleet base at Scapa Flow; airfields, air yards and stores depots in Ceylon, Australia, the Admiralty Islands and many more. By 1946 the manpower total was reduced to 492,800 and by 1947 it was 192,665.

Demobilisation was not just a question of numbers, although reductions of 300,000 men per year in two consecutive years were difficult enough to manage. The majority of the pre-war regulars still serving had become senior rates or officers and virtually every branch had shortages of junior rates, felt most keenly in the newer branches such as radar, fighter control, electronic warfare and particularly naval aviation. The RN had only regained full control of its embarked aircraft together with their procurement, shore training and support in May 1939, although recruiting for aircrew and maintenance personnel had begun shortly after the decision by Sir Thomas Inskip, the Minister for Defence Co-ordination, in July 1937 that both the administration and operation of naval aviation should be under Admiralty and not joint control. By 1945 one man in four of those serving in the RN and its reserves was directly concerned with naval aviation. The Fleet Air Arm was not, therefore, in a position to allow as many early releases as the larger, longer-established branches such as seamen and stokers. The result was that the release of some rating categories had to be held back behind the average level⁴ and by 1947 the disparity between the most advanced release group and the most retarded was eleven. Equality was not achieved before 1948 when the last of the ‘hostilities only’ ratings were released. The manpower crisis between 1945 and 1948 was one of the reasons why the WRNS was retained as a permanent element within the Naval Service.

A number of regular RN officers had qualified as pilots prior to 1939 and others were recruited as short-service RN pilots and observers after 1937. Many of these subsequently gained permanent commissions and several rose to high rank but after September 1939 the great majority of pilots and observers were commissioned into the RNR and especially the RNVR. While some of these were interested in transferring to the regular Navy, many were not. Faced with a serious shortage of aircrew in 1946, the Admiralty decided to cease the training of observers and train officers as pilot/observers to fill the gap.⁵ Officers undergoing observer training at the time, or ear-marked for it, were to be re-trained as pilot/observers. Surprisingly, it was decided not to repeat the pre-war practice of entering officers on short-service commissions as pilots. At the same time it was decided that two-thirds of all naval pilots should, in future be ratings,⁶ the majority to be recruited direct from civil life into a re-constituted rating pilots’ branch but some to be taken from RN branches particularly, it was hoped, aircraft artificers although it was not made clear how this would help the existing shortage of artificers. The first rating pilot intake took place in November 1946 and comprised volunteers from the residue of deferred wartime ‘Y’ Scheme candidates together with a few transfers from other branches. Another new rating branch was created to replace the wartime telegraphist air gunners (TAGs); known as aircrewmen, the new rear-seat crews were to specialise as ‘maintainer-users’ of airborne electronic equipment and were to be recruited, it was hoped, mainly from the electrical branch. Aircrewmen in the higher rating grades were to be trained to navigate aircraft and suitable TAGs were to be offered conversion courses to allow them to join the branch which was expected to fill about 80 per cent of the rear seats in future squadrons.

Changes were also made in the maintenance and servicing branches and those connected with other duties concerning aircraft. The naval airman branch was reconstituted and ratings employed in both aircraft handling and safety equipment duties were transferred into it from the seaman branch. The branch also included photographers, meteorological ratings and mechanics used for aircraft servicing and general duties connected with air ordnance. More highly-qualified mechanics, now known as skilled air mechanics (SAMs), were to be introduced to replace the air fitter branch for employment on aircraft maintenance that required a lower degree of skill than that of artificers.⁷ Artificers themselves were the most highly-skilled rating maintenance personnel and they were qualified in either airframe/engine or electrical/ordnance categories. In accordance with the recommendations of the Naval Aircraft Maintenance Committee, centralised maintenance was introduced for both front-line and training units within which personnel and aircraft were to be formed into cohesive air groups.

Within a year it had to be accepted the changes introduced for aircrew categories and their training had been a failure that had, arguably, made the situation worse rather than better. Few volunteers for the rating pilot scheme had come forward and the Admiralty had to accept that only officers would have the full range of qualities and access to briefing material and intelligence that it required its pilots to have.⁸ This accorded with wartime experience, making the decision to rely heavily on rating pilots difficult to understand. Also, the RAF, which was responsible for all UK military pilot training, had decided that its own pilots should all, in future, be officers and training ratings for the RN alone would have been difficult. The termination of the rating pilot scheme was announced in December 1948⁹ and it was announced at the same time that in future pilot entry was to comprise approximately one-third from volunteer executive officers on the permanent list and two-thirds direct entry officers on short-service commissions. A small number of Royal Marines and engineer specialist officers were also to be recruited to provide a broad base of knowledge in front-line units.

The first conversion course to train pilot/observers started in July 1948 but it immediately became apparent that the concept of appointing dual-trained officers as either pilots or observers was impractical and very uneconomical since the training was excessively long and the maintenance of currency in both skills difficult to achieve. The few dual-trained officers were designated as (F) for ‘flying’ rather than the more usual (p) for a pilot or (o) for an observer in the Navy List. The last pure observer courses in 1946 were composed of RCN and Dutch officers but by 1948 it was accepted that a new scheme for the direct entry of short-service officers for training as observers must be restored. The aircrewman branch took a long time to get started but eventually attracted a number of TAGs; all TAGs rated petty officer or above were offered the choice of conversion to the aircrewman branch or of re-training as naval airmen or air electrical specialists. About 150 opted to continue flying and completed their training in November 1949. The original concept that the branch should draw its recruits from the air electrical branch was abandoned after it proved impractical and a direct-entry scheme was approved. This, likewise, never materialised and by 1949 the branch was composed entirely of former TAGs. A new entry of some form of rating aircrew was anticipated, however, for the three-seat anti-submarine aircraft project that materialised as the Fairey Gannet. Broadly, the changes in the structure of the maintenance branches proved more workable and these stayed in place. One other change was introduced in 1949; since May 1939 officers involved with aviation duties had formed what was known as the Air Branch, although the term Fleet Air Arm used since 1924 had remained in common use. Short-service officers and those mobilised from the RNR and RNVR into the Air Branch, who had not qualified as executive officers able to keep watches or command HM ships had the fact denoted by a letter ‘A’ inside the executive curl of the their rank lace. In 1949 the Branch was disestablished and officers were transferred into the executive or engineering Branches¹⁰ as appropriate and the use of the ‘A’ in rank lace lapsed.

The last course of pilots cross-trained as observers completed its training in September 1949 and there were no plans to train more although, in the normal course of events, it remained possible for some suitable observers to re-train as pilots. At the same time specialisation as observers was re-opened to officers in the executive branch and direct-entry into observer training continued. By 1949 the training of aircrew had, therefore, stabilised although numbers were still significantly below those required. Two very practical schemes were introduced to expand the number of aircrew availa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Glossary
• Chapter 1: Manpower, Fleets and Changes
• Chapter 2: The Korean War
• Chapter 3: Assistance for Commonwealth Navies
• Chapter 4: Invention, Innovation, New Aircraft and Rebuilt Ships
• Chapter 5: ‘Cold War’, NATO and the Middle East
• Chapter 6: A Royal Occasion and the Radical Review
• Chapter 7: The Suez Crisis
• Chapter 8: New Equipment and Another Defence Review
• Chapter 9: Helicopters and Helicopter Carriers
• Chapter 10: A Range of Carrier Operations
• Chapter 11: The Evolution of Strike Warfare
• Chapter 12: Brunei and the Indonesian Confrontation
• Chapter 13: The British Nuclear Deterrent and the End of the Admiralty Era
• Chapter 14: The Cancellation of CVA-01
• Chapter 15: Rundown of the Carrier Force
• Chapter 16: Capability, the Beira Patrol, Aden and Belize
• Chapter 17: Small Carriers and Vertical Landing
• Chapter 18: The South Atlantic War
• Chapter 19: A Decade of Operations
• Chapter 20: New Defence Reviews, Carriers and Aircraft
• Chapter 21: Reflections
• Notes
• Bibliography